It’s easy to share things when nobody’s looking. But with the number of eyes and critics around it starts getting harder.
I used to share many of my thoughts online and it was simple. Then I wasn’t thinking how ridiculous I look to the majority of people who see what I put out there.
I can’t say that I started to feel okay about it. I still don’t write anything on Facebook. Even more so, I don’t like or comment things on social media. Because I know that those shitty algorithms will show the thing I like to everyone I know.
To make it clear, I like rather harmless things. I just don’t want to share them with everyone I know. Be it a photo of my classmate, a piece of art or a text – why would I show it to people who won’t understand it.
I think another contributing factor here is the fact that me and so many more us don’t really have our own understanding of what’s good, bad, cool or lame.
We adjust and combine opinions of everyone who makes up the people we are. We use someone else’s phrases, copy their gestures and facial expressions.
To think about it, we’re very postmodernist people.
That’s why sharing things is really hard for the majority of us. We don’t know if we’re smart or not, if we did good or not. We need a pat on the head to know those things.
On the other side of the spectrum we have the people who freely talk about anything that comes to their mind. Or don’t hesitate to share the 10001st selfie with a bunch of hashtags.
Strangely enough, they clearly show that you really do need to be yourself. They share content that doesn’t bring any value to anyone whatsoever. And people are happy to engage with this kind of content and follow their lead in creating more of it.
To me it feels like if you’re sharing something – it should be good and unique. I don’t feel like I have anything to contribute to the conversation. And why would I? The world is at least 6 thousand years old. Chances are, things worth saying were already said.
When you’re 18 and the world is full of discoveries. So it’s really easy to start thinking that the majority of people hasn’t had the insightfulness in them to understand the things that you understood being in love for the first time.
But as you grow up, you magically start seeing that the world is filled with people who have their own reflections. Often a lot more sophisticated than yours.
But they don’t hurry to share them. Because why bother? It feels like there’s no demand for reflection in the world right now. Like the people are perfectly happy staying up-to-date with the world by scrolling down the feed of photos on Instagram or reading quick summaries of what’s going on in the world.
Feels like the informational space gets more and more pragmatic. Ain’t nobody got time for digging deep.
I misspoke.
Everyone has time. Enough of it was freed by all the of “one of a kind” productivity tools. We just don’t use what we’ve saved rationally.
We thought that if we complete the day’s work in an hour we’d have 7 hours to us. But in reality, you don’t trick the system. If you spent day’s worth of energy in an hour – that’s on you. You’ll just spend the majority of the time you saved in a vegetable-like mode, not knowing how to apply yourself.
Constant productivity is such a bullshit myth. Here’s a simple truth:
If there really are important things for you to do quickly – you will do them. If you don’t care about them – you’ll be doing them for a long time. You can force yourself to work really quickly. But you won’t save energy. You will spend just as much energy as these tasks take. In 1 hour or in 8 hours.
Of course, you have to and should organize yourself and constantly fight procrastination. But in reality, procrastination might just be one of the great things we do. Letting the mind wander off. Do the traveling on its own.
99% of young and older professionals I see don’t really need a productivity boost. They need a happiness boost.
Anyway, as I was saying, it gets really hard to share stuff with the world if you think about what you’re sharing.
1st reason(and it explains a ton of things) is the fact that we’re a bunch of sissies who get offended too easily.
2nd reason is that the modern information consumption ethic dictates us that sharing our thoughts is rude. The update in the news feed should either be condensed news or a photo of you, your breast, your dog, your cat or your child. In that order.
I noticed that even the closest friends aren’t ready to discuss abstract concepts and feelings for the most of it. This information isn’t concentrated enough.
I just realized that this should be a reassuring post – I’ve already titled as if I’d provide some advice oh how not to be scared to share things.
But the reality is that if you share something that’s really important to you, you’ll always feel vulnerable and anxious. And the only recipe is to start sharing despite it (which I didn’t find the courage to do). Then, in theory, with time, you’ll find your tribe. You’ll feel yourself comfortable with them and it will all be good.
But I can’t get rid of the feeling that the death of sharing what you really think started with Twitter’s 140 characters and is now continued with Instagram.
Professional texts aren’t going anywhere. Marketing through content and pretending to be vulnerable and real isn’t going anywhere. But really sharing your thoughts doesn’t feel like something that has a place in this day and age.
To be clear, I don’t talk about sharing your views and thoughts about news, politics, trends, tabloids, etc.
I mean really sharing how you feel. To find support, to let other know about what’s going on inside.
The way I see it is we used to have much less entertainment. We had access to far fewer channels that provide us with easy to consume content. So people wrote, read letters, read essays, contemplated.. And because of how bored we were, we happily consumed the things people shared even though it might not have been very fascinating.
The default state of mind in which I start reading or watching something is the following:
I have a problem and now the author will tell me how to solve it through a simple step-by-step process. If I don’t see this happening when I’m consuming the content, I get confused and close it.
I don’t generally consume content to rewind. Because everywhere I am and pretty much anything I do – I’m already getting my dose of content whether I want it or not.
Just a couple of hours ago I read an 18 page long technical specification for a complex web system. Will I be open to reading and trying to feel someone’s abstract thoughts after that? Doubtfully.
In a nutshell.
If you share stuff professionally – keep it simple and to the point. Help your audience and they will be happy.
If you’d like to share on personal level, I don’t think there’s a market for that right now. But as you can see, I still do it. And that’s because it’s a very meditative thing. You wouldn’t have thought that much about a topic if you didn’t intend to share it later on.
But to answer the initial question: there’s no reason whatsoever to be scared to share things. Mainly because almost no one cares. And if someone does care – you’re the lucky one.